Ruby, Rails, and everything in between.

After reading Gruber’s article about Android and the iPhone, and having been long overdue to write my iPhone/Android article, today is the day.

Before we begin, I want you to understand very well where I stand on the Android/iPhone debate. Android will continue to gain market share, at the expense of Apple and RIM, and will easily be the market leader in the next year or two. There will be no debate. I firmly believe this.

I am heavily invested in both Apple and Google. I ran Windows until around 2000, ran Linux at home until ~2004, and have been exclusively Mac since sometime in 2004. Both my children have iPods, my wife and I both have iPhones and Macbook Pros, and I work on a iMac all day at work. I love the philosophy of Apple, and to be completely honest, I love their products. Short of me spending months to build something perfectly tailored to my flavor of the week, it’s the closest thing to perfection, for me. On the Google side, I use Gmail, Google Voice, Google Reader, Google Analytics, Google Groups, Google Maps, and probably other Google products daily. I have over 6 and a half years of personal e-mail on Gmail, have read over 220,000 items via Google Reader, use Google Analytics to track a number of personal and professional sites, Google Groups to manage my open source projects and football league, and use Google Maps countless times to make sure I get where I need to, when I need to.

With the release of the Nexus S, something really hit me. I watched the Nexus S commercial, and came away fairly unimpressed with the device. It reminded me a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S, actually. What did impress me, of course, was the apps. Not the 3rd party apps, but the Google apps. Google Voice, Google Maps, Google Navigator.

My concern as both platforms mature is that Google will continue to build and improve tools only for their platform as a “Product Differentiator”, and as a consumer on another platform (iPhone), Google Maps, Google Navigator, Google Reader, and Gmail are all good examples of this in varying ways.

If Google built a device like the iPhone: a non-plastic, non-cheap feeling device that didn’t require extensive configuration or tweaking to get it to a state where I’d want to use it, they might be a better candidate for my smart phone business. Maybe then my concerns will be quelled. On the other hand, Google is more a get it out there and iterate it kind of company, which typically means substandard initial releases of products. I don’t want to be your guinea pig when it comes to a $200 phone that will cost over $2000 over the life of the phone.

Are you addicted to Apple and Google? Do you read Google Reader via a Safari window on your iPhone? Do you use Mapquest4Mobile because Google refuses to release Google Navigator for iPhone? Do you use Google Priority Inbox watered down on your iPhone? How do others cope?

3 Comments

Google is a company with a rapidly expanding product portfolio. I still feel that all their products and services tie back into search at some level. You having to choose between Apple and Google is a result of the importance of controlling the platform. Apple has demonstrated that it has unmitigated authority to reject any app that it chooses from its devices. Microsoft waited until a court injunction to allow consumers to choose their own browser. With this level of platform control, killing off Google is as easy as flipping a switch. I feel that Google moving into iPhone (and now Windows 7 Phone) territory with Android isn’t as much about increasing revenue, as it is about protecting existing revenue by eliminating “the off switch”.

I am sure that Google provides more products and services on secondary platforms than any other company. Is this enlightened self interest, “giving back”? I am waiting to see the cross-pollination (or lack thereof) of products and services between Microsoft, Apple, and Google, and RIM too put some perspective on Google’s choice to make a few exclusive apps.

@Ben I don’t debate Google backs a lot of their tools with search. I really see this as the divergence of two companies with tools that I love, and how will I (and they) cope with the split? Will I still receive the same services I’ve become accustomed to from Google? A lot of this is speculation, obviously, as at this point I’m only seeing the fringes of it, but if I wasn’t speculating, what else would I have to blog about?

Your point is really good about disabling the “off” switch. Apple has said time and again that they are not into building a search engine, though Google has also said time and again that they’re not competing with Apple.

I agree that Google provides more cross platform services that any of the other companies, but remember that the other companies have been in the “platform” business for 20-30 years (and in Apple’s case, longer). Google has been in the “platform” business for a year and a half or so, and I’m starting to see the splintering of their services on alternative platforms. I hope Google stays true to their “do no evil” mantra, that’s all I’m saying. I guess I can’t hope to have my favorite tools and operating system/hardware skate along nicely without crossing paths forever.

About a year ago or so, Apple bought out what was probably the best map API at the time: Pushpin (http://www.pushpin.com/index.html). They left the docs but removed the front page and made it impossible for anyone to get a new API keys. I’m sure it was all about them getting a start on having their own map api. It’s annoying when something good and open source is out there and gets taken out by a corporation though.